7/16/00
Created with Bryce, and Carrara; Plant with Plant Studio
No special symbolism here, except for my enjoyment in creating a realistic juxtaposition of natural and technological imagery.
This image started as an exercise to use the opposite direction landscape to that shown in the background of Watch, and as an opportunity to use Plant Studio. The starting image was focused primarily on a cypress bush, but when I zoomed in on the grass clump, it became a surprisingly interesting composition. The grassy terrain quickly became a dry, gravelly area to complement the desert grass clump, and then some Bryce rocks were introduced to make the composition more interesting, and to conceal some defects in the material mapping. A small terrain with a modified sand texture was used to simulate the sort of drifting that often occurs in these environments. The copper pillar was the final addition before the first Carrara rendering was attempted. The purpose of that rendering was to add the aircraft. An attempt to use .obj models in the Bryce scene met with problems because of the lighting, a problem eliminated by using the Bryce rendering as a backdrop.
After that rendering, I returned to Bryce to rotate the grass slightly. This eliminated an artifact from the combination of the plant and material symmetry that made the plant look less than natural. Also, a small patch of mirage was added near the base of the pillar. The image was rerendered and exported back to Carrara for the final rendering with the aircraft.